A decision on what to do about the £130,000 shortfall in Stirling Council’s ambitious 2014 plans looks set to be delayed until August at the earliest.

The Observer revealed on Wednesday how the local authority had allocated £100,000 in their 2013/14 budget for the programme of arts events tying in with Scotland’s second Year of Homecoming.

This included engaging Stirling designer Iona Crawford as creative director of the initiative, heading up the branding and marketing of the event.

However a report to the council’s community planning and regeneration committee, which met yesterday (Thursday), suggested a shortfall of “up to £131,000” based on actual and estimated costs.

Councillors heard that the cost of handing the marketing and branding of Stirling 2014 to Iona Crawford and firm, Iona Crawford Ltd, was £138,210 including a total of £103,310 to be spent on branding and marketing and a £3000 a month “retainer”.

With PR support expected to cost £12,000 and £30,000 being set aside for films, the report stated: “These costs are substantially higher than the indicative 2013-14 budget allocation of £40,000 and will require significant additional budget allocation.”

A cross-party 2014 working group of councillors asked Provost Mike Robbins and council officers to “review the content of the creative director’s commission with Iona Crawford and seek to reduce costs as far as practicable”.

At yesterday’s meeting SNP members, councillors Steven Paterson and Scott Farmer, pushed for the committee to agree to making up the budget shortfall through council reserves.

Councillor Paterson said: “We’ve been through various incarnations of a 2014 group over the last five years now - and arguments about what we should do and how much we should do - and we now just have to get on with it and make a decision that allows officers to get on with marketing and all the other work that’s needed to make this a success.

“If we’re not going to risk the reputation of the council and lose the potential legacy benefits that are available to us for years to come we have to make a decision sooner rather than later.”

Labour’s Johanna Boyd, however, said she wasn’t happy for the committee to be recommending the commitment of such a large amount of reserves, partly because they were currently “taking stock of where we are and how we fell things are progressing regarding events in 2014”.

She added: “I think it is more appropriate to wait and see what the outcome is before making decisions about such a substantial sum of money,” she said.

The committee eventually agreed that the results of this stock-taking exercise would be referred to the cross-party 2014 working group.

They would then formulate a recommendation on funding issues.

This would then be referred to a special full council meeting to be held during the council’s summer recess , probably some time in August.